Medical dermatology company Botanix Pharmaceuticals has executed an expansion of its license to the novel Permetrex skin delivery technology.
Permetrex is utilised as the delivery formulation for the company’s lead product for the treatment of acne, BTX-1503, which is progressing through clinical development.
The first human study involving Permetrex was completed in December 2016 and according to the company showed that the delivery technology was safe and had minimal irritancy potential.
Before the execution of the license expansion, Botanix’s license was limited to using Permetrex only with cannabinoids, including the synthetic cannabidiol that forms the active in BTX-1503. The license has now been expanded to allow the use of Permetrex skin delivery technology with any drug actives that can be used to treat skin diseases.
“We are very pleased to have completed this extension of our Permetrex license,” said Botanix executive director Matt Callahan, “having access to the technology for a range of other drugs provides new opportunities for the Company to expand its pipeline of novel skin disease treatments.”
Permetrex provides a potentially more effective way of delivering drugs into the skin that is non-irritating, does not use chemicals that dry out the skin, and does not require the use of preservatives that can cause serious allergic reactions. As many existing dermatology products use sub-optimal formulations that suffer from these limitations, a range of marketed skin disease drugs have the potential to be improved utilising the Permetrex approach.
“Because the underlying drug active is already approved and marketed, new and improved Permetrex enabled products can be developed quickly and commercialised without the need to submit the new products for FDA or other regulatory agency approval,” said Mr Callahan, “we plan to augment our pipeline with a number of these opportunities which are complementary to our lead acne program.”